the war analogy: when you know resistance is futile, what do you do? there are three options, we decided. 1. you fight on, deluding yourself that somehow you can win. 2. you fight on, but knowing it is futile. 3. you surrender. with regards to the life, it is the same. we don't perceive any greater purpose in life, and we can either 1. keep on living, deluding ourselves with some contrived purpose or dream. 2. keep on living, but knowing there is no greater purpose. 3. you commit suicide. option 1 offers happiness and sanity. option 2 may stem from habit or hope, or something else. option 3 is the ultimate challenge of one's will - whether what we believe in translates to our actions. but this morning i was thinking about the possibility of a fourth option, and this relates to our perception, which we also talked about when we argued for and against the existence and later relevance of absolute truths.
truths are things that are right. our understanding of them are limited by our perceptions, because our understanding of anything stems from our senses (sorry plato). truths as we know it are therefore relative truths deduced from our perceptions. there may be absolute truths, and they may or may not be the same as the relative truths that we know. we can never know whether our version of truth is absolutely true. three questions stem from this discussion. first of all, are there differently versions of perceived truth? i think so. for example, the nazi beliefs in the destiny of germany and the third reich is accepted by most people belief as false and bad. this is our version of truth. at the time of the weimar republic, however, glory of the fatherland and the chance of a way out of the shame of defeat and national debt was a worthwhile goal which made the nazi party seem like a good and acceptable option. this is the german public's version of truth in the late 1930s. in retrospect, give our accumulation of knowledge about the operation and beliefs of the nazi party, and the fact that the allies won the wall, our version of the truth is clearly the dominant one today. in the future, our perception about the goodness of a totalitarian regime may once again alter (for example, in times of desparate need). the important thing to realise, however, is that we cannot tell whether any of these versions of the truth is any closer of further away from the absolute truth. secondly, at the extremes of human behaviour, does our perceived truth approaches absolute truth? i don't see why it should. for example, is the preservation of life always a good thing? we may think it is, and it may be so absolutely, but we can never prove one way or another that the two are the same. the strength of our collective convictions doesn't necessarily make our perceived truth any closer to the absolute one. finally, if absolute truth exists, does it have any relevance on or lives? the answer is a resounding yes. there may be absolute laws of physics which govern the universe. and these obviously influences our lives. however, we can only deduce what these laws are from our observations, and these may or may not be reflect the absolute laws of physics. nevertheless, it is the absolute laws which govern the universe, not our perceived ones. therefore, if there was a god, and non-believers will go to hell, if i do not believe in god, there is no question about it - i will go to hell. the absolute truths (there is a god and non-believers will go to hell) affects me. however, i cannot perceive the existence of god. therefore my perceived truth (there is no god) is at odds with the absolute truth. however, it is the absolute truth that will ultimately affect the outcome.
so in summary, there are absolute truths and perceived truths. there may be different versions of perceived truths. at no point can we know whether our version of the perceived truth is same as the absolute truth or not. and, it is the absolute truth which affects our lives, even if we cannot know what it is. however, the key in all of these statements is perception. therein arises the possibility of a fourth option. we are limited by our perception of space-time. time, especially, gives rise to our perception that life has no greater purpose. however, it is possible that our perception of time, and the perceived truth that we deduce from this (life has no greater purpose because time must come to an end, in particular, our time in existence), may not the same as the absolute truth (that life has a greater purpose). if we are able to alter our perception to transcend time, then a fourth option will be available to us. how are we able to transcend time? there seems to be two ways. 1. if we lived forever, time will lose its meaning. 2. if we only lived in the now, then future and past (measured by time) will have no relevance. however, i am unable to think like this - and so a fourth option is denied to me.
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